Page 162 - The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner 151

dropped the money in a little candy box by her feet. She looked at
me shyly. “I want to tell you a story,” she said, “but I’m a little
embarrassed about it.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s kind of silly.”
“Please tell me.”
She laughed. “Well, when I was in fourth grade in Kabul, my
father hired a woman named Ziba to help around the house. She
had a sister in Iran, in Mashad, and, since Ziba was illiterate,
she’d ask me to write her sister letters once in a while. And when
the sister replied, I’d read her letter to Ziba. One day, I asked her
if she’d like to learn to read and write. She gave me this big smile,
crinkling her eyes, and said she’d like that very much. So we’d sit
at the kitchen table after I was done with my own schoolwork and
I’d teach her Alef-beh. I remember looking up sometimes in the
middle of homework and seeing Ziba in the kitchen, stirring meat
in the pressure cooker, then sitting down with a pencil to do the
alphabet homework I’d assigned to her the night before.
“Anyway, within a year, Ziba could read children’s books. We
sat in the yard and she read me the tales of Dara and Sara—slowly
but correctly. She started calling me Moalem Soraya, Teacher
Soraya.” She laughed again. “I know it sounds childish, but the
first time Ziba wrote her own letter, I knew there was nothing else
I’d ever want to be but a teacher. I was so proud of her and I felt
I’d done something really worthwhile, you know?”
“Yes,” I lied. I thought of how I had used my literacy to ridicule
Hassan. How I had teased him about big words he didn’t know.
“My father wants me to go to law school, my mother’s always
throwing hints about medical school, but I’m going to be a
teacher. Doesn’t pay much here, but it’s what I want.”
“My mother was a teacher too,” I said.